American politics

Health policy

DID the recent outbreak of measles in California encourage more parents to vaccinate their children? Scientists have worried that the opposite may be true. This is because media coverage of the vaccination debate tends to lend credibility to sceptics, as both sides—scientists and nervous parents—are given their say in an effort to create “balance”. The matter is hardly helped by politicians vacillating on the issue.

Finding data on vaccinations is actually more difficult than it sounds. Health records may be digital these days, but they are rarely easy to access. Instead, they are collected in isolated databases by different doctors and hospitals.

America and Israel

BINYAMIN NETANYAHU'S speech to Congress on Tuesday will tackle some large questions of foreign policy: how to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and how to manage the American-Israeli security alliance when the two countries’ governments disagree on strategies to keep Israel safe.

Alas, there are several reasons to suspect that this lofty speech from Israel's prime minister is happening at this specific time and in this setting for reasons of low domestic politics, on both sides.

Congressional politics

THE countdown was a nail-biter. At midnight tonight, barring any sort of last-minute deal, around 30,000 employees of the Department of Homeland Security were going to be furloughed. Some 170,000 essential workers were nearly doomed to chug along without pay. A bill to keep the federal agency funded for another three weeks had died a grim death on the House floor earlier today. But with just two hours to go, John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, managed to corral enough votes to extend funding for the DHS for another week.

No one should call this a victory. Another ugly battle now looms just days away.

Chicago’s mayoral election

“THANK you, Chicago. We have come a long way, and we have a little bit further to go,” said Rahm Emanuel at around 9:30pm last night. The results of Chicago’s mayoral election on Tuesday had indicated that he will be forced into a run-off with Jesus Garcia, a Cook County commissioner, to keep his job. In a short, gracious speech the mayor, still hoarse from a nasty cold, congratulated Mr Garcia for a “good race” and called him a “good man” with whom he is looking forward to debating in the weeks ahead.

Having earned 45.4% of the vote, Mr Emanuel fell short of the 50% plus-one-vote he needed to avoid a run-off on April 7th.

Keystone XL and the president's veto

BARACK OBAMA has vetoed only three bills in his time in the Oval Office: less than almost any president in recent history (see chart below). His veto of a bill authorising the Keystone Pipeline yesterday suggests that number will be rising fairly swiftly. With Republicans now in control of both houses, Mr Obama will be faced with far more decisions like this. The politics is simple: the Republicans want to trap the president into rejecting as many popular ideas (or at least ideas that Republicans like) as possible.

The Keystone Pipeline makes for an odd case study. The amount of political energy expended on it far outweighs its economic significance.

Marijuana laws

SMOKING cannabis becomes legal today in Alaska, the latest state to lift its prohibition of the drug after Colorado and Washington, which took the plunge last year. Alaskans over 21 can now grow up to six of their own plants, share up to an ounce (28g) of harvested pot, and smoke as much as they like in private without breaking the law. Selling the stuff commercially will become legal next year, once the state authorities have hammered out a set of rules to regulate the business. Alaska’s 750,000 residents aren’t going to turn the pot business on its head. But two things about the state make it an interesting case study for weed-watchers.

Social services in Illinois

“CLEARLY, this is a situation that is unacceptable,” says George Sheldon, the brand new director of the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). He was referring to the scandalous treatment of children by the institutions and people paid by the agency to look after them.

The president's patriotism

RUDY GIULIANI, a former mayor of New York City and failed presidential candidate, has caused a little stir by questioning Barack Obama's love of country. "I do not believe—and I know this is a horrible thing to say—but I do not believe that the president loves America," he said on Wednesday, at a private dinner to promote the presidential prospects of Scott Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin. "He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country."

Obamacare and the Supreme Court

ON MARCH 4th the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case targeting the Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare. The legal challenge against the law hinges on four words, as I explored in detail last week. Here I discuss the odd but distinct possibility that it doesn't matter whether the challengers or the government have the better interpretation of the provision in question. Ironically, the very fact that this conflict exists at all may end up working in the law’s favour.

Remembering David Carr

“CHANGE comes very slowly, but then happens all at once,” observed David Carr, the New York Times’ media reporter, about the television business last year. As usual, his words proved prescient, capturing not only the upheavals that are now typical of this trade, but also the turn of his own life, and the paper he now leaves behind. On February 12th Mr Carr died at the Times offices, due to complications with lung cancer. At 58 he was one of the Times’ best-known reporters.

The death penalty

DOES the death penalty deter crime? Benjamin Rush, one of America's founding fathers, did not think so. Alongside Benjamin Franklin he helped reform Pennsylvania’s harsh penal code. By 1794 Pennsylvania limited the death penalty to cases of first-degree murder; in 1834 the state led the nascent nation in ending public executions. Today Pennsylvania took another big step closer to doing away with capital punishment altogether.

Tom Wolf, the state’s new Democratic governor, has announced a moratorium on all executions until he reviews a forthcoming report from a committee created in 2011 to research the matter.

Shooting guns

SHOOTING a handgun at a target is a thrill; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You load bullets into a clip, push it up into the gun, turn off the safety catch, take careful hold of the gun with two hands, aim and shoot. The thing jumps in your hand and you see the bullet knock a hole in the target and spark off the floor at the back of the range. There is an extraordinary rush and then you do it again. Another spark; perhaps this time the hole in the target is a little closer to the centre. Soon you have fired the whole clip and you’re loading the deadly weapon in your hand again.

2016 Democratic primaries

THE field of Republican presidential contenders may be limited to a narrow range of conservative fellows in mid- to late-middle age, but at least there are a lot of them. The Democratic field is, for all practical purposes, Hillary Clinton.

Ahead by an average of 49 points in early polls, it is not clear that Mrs Clinton has any serious competition. There is some sign that Joe Biden might jump in, but his poll numbers are dismal for a second-term vice-president. Martin O'Malley, Maryland's former governor, might run. Jim Webb, a former Virginia senator, is a possibility.

Political correctness

AT A National Prayer Breakfast last Thursday, Barack Obama made the point that Islam is hardly the first religion to be hijacked and perverted by murderous extremists. Indeed, groups have been distorting religious faith for nihilistic ends for centuries. By way of example, he mentioned the atrocities committed by Christian Crusaders in the name of God. This reference to Christianity, historically accurate though it was, earned him quite a bit of criticism, mostly from Republicans (as we covered on our Erasmus blog). What has received less attention, however, is the way Mr Obama went on to call for Americans to refrain from insulting the faith of others.

Gay marriage

“REMEMBER Sodom and Gomorrah!” warned a protest sign on a five-foot wooden cross. “Keep marriage traditional!” demanded a lady in a dark quilted jacket, one of several protesters outside Jefferson County courthouse in Birmingham. But their protest was in vain. For inside this courthouse Alabama’s first same-sex marriages were solemnised on February 9th.

Campaigners for gay rights feel that history is on their side, so they are not shy about invoking it. Pro-gay demonstrators outside the same courthouse likened their opponents to the white southerners who tried to maintain Jim Crow. “Looks familiar?